Hitherto, a technique called rapid prototyping is widely known. Here, a three-dimensional shaped object as a shaping target is shaped by stacking layers each having a cross-sectional shape as a horizontal cross-section.
As the rapid prototyping, there are known various techniques such as a stereolithography of irradiating a laser to plastic resin, a laminated object manufacturing of stacking thin film sheets by bonding the sheets, a type of extruding and stacking photocuring resins, and a powder shaping type of binding a powder material by a binder liquid.
Among these, as the technique of the powder shaping type is comparatively easy in treatment, compared to the other techniques and thus it is possible to make the shaped object of the powder shaping type at low cost.
As the fabricating method using a powder, for example, as illustrated in JP H6-218712 A (Patent Literature 1) and JP H7-507508 A (Patent Literature 2), a powder material is supplied onto a top surface of a table at a predetermined layer thickness in a layered manner, a binder liquid is ejected from an inkjet head and the like to the layer so as to form layers of a part of a shaped object, and the layers are sequentially stacked so as to shape a three-dimensional shaped object.
In a three-dimensional fabricating apparatus that shapes an object by a powder, generally, a powder material is supplied from a powder material supply device to a top surface of a table and a binder liquid is ejected from a binder liquid supply device to the powder material supplied onto the top surface of the table.
When the shaped object is formed by the three-dimensional fabricating apparatus with such a configuration, generally the following operations are repeated until the shaped object is completed.
That is, the powder material supply device is moved linearly so as to uniformly spread the powder material on the top surface of the table at a predetermined layer thickness, and then the powder material supply device is separated from the top surface of the table so as to be returned to an origin position.
Next, the binder liquid supply device is moved so as to eject the binder liquid toward the powder material on the top surface of the table, and hence a powder material layer including layers of a part of the shaped object are formed.
Then, after the ejection of the binder liquid is completed, the binder liquid supply device is separated from the top surface of the table so as to return to the origin position, and the powder material supply device is moved so as to supply a new powder material onto the top surface of the table, more specifically, on the powder material layer formed immediately before. Accordingly, the next powder material layer is uniformly formed by spreading at a predetermined layer thickness.
However, if the powder material supply device or the binder liquid supply device is returned to the origin position when the operation of supplying the powder material from the powder material supply device and the operation of ejecting the binder liquid from the binder liquid supply device are switched, a problem arises in that some time is taken for the movement.
In general, in the rapid prototyping including the powder shaping type of forming the shaped object, there is a tendency that some time is taken until the shaped object is completed, because the powder material layer having a small layer thickness is stacked. Of course, the time required for making the shaped object depends on the size of the three-dimensional shaped object. For that reason, it is desirable to shorten the shaping time by fabricating the shaped object at a high speed. However, the moving time of the powder material supply device or the binder liquid supply device is a factor that further increases the shaping time until the shaped object is completed.